Leavened bread.



Pennsylvania,

HENRY a. KonMaN, TRUMAN m. colorant, AND LAUREN n. ASHE, 0E rrr'rseunen, PENNSYLVANIA.

LEAVENED BEE.

No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that we, HENRY A. KOHMAN, TRUMAN M. GODFREY, and LAUREN H. Asian, all citizens of the United States, residing in Pittsburgh, Allegheny county, State of have invented certain new and useful Tmprovements in Leavened Bread; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

In the manufacture of leavened bread, it is customary to incorporate with the flour,

east, salt, water, milk, and like ingredients of the dough batch, an appropriate quantity of a shortening agent, liquid at ordinary temperatures, and readily miscible therewith by the usual mixing and kneading apparatus employed in the trade. The purpose of this shortening agent, as is well known, is to lessen the toughness, of the baked loaf, to mature and age the dough so that its cell walls shall be of a finer and thinner texture, thereby contributing to whitening the loaf, and contributing to homogeneity in the size and distribution of the cells in the finished product. With the ordinary dough batch, however, it is impracticable to increase the amount of liquid shortening employed beyond well established limits without seriously hampering the bread-making operation and without sacrifice of qualities in the finished product of a highly desirable character. Thus, from the operating standpoint, the dough, instead of being soft and sticky, should be fairly stifi, so that it will not tend to clog the dividing and molding machines, and so that it will have the springiness recognized as desirable in the dividing and molding operations. To obtain this stifi'ness or springiness of the dough batch, an appropriate amount of water should beemployed. It is found, however, that the employment of a liquid shortening agent (say a vegetable oil, such as cotton-seed oil or the like) materially cuts down the amount of water which the dough will tolerate, and lessens the desired springiness of the batch. Moreover, in the finished loaf, the proportion of water present is likewise diminished, with a corresponding sacrifice of the normal freshness and flavor of the bread. Furthermore, to

produce the desired shortening efi'ect for Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Nov. t, 31916.

Application filed. August 16, 1916. Serial No. 115,152.

bread of high quality, the quantity of-the liquid shortener employed, although limited by the considerations just referred to, is often relatively considerable,-amounting, even in ordinary practice, to from 2 to 3 per cent. by weight of the flour employed in making up the dough batch.

The present invention is based upon the discovery that a shortening effect equal in value to that produced by relatively large quantities of liquid oil can be obtained by the employment of a hard fat, immiscible as such with flour at ordinary atmospheric temperatures, but which may be brought into homogeneous admixture therewith in various ways.v So also, the employment of the hard fat is found to permit the use of sufiicient water not only to supply the amount required for giving the desired stiffness and" springiness to the dough, but to supply, in the baked loaf, the quantity recognized as desirable for imparting to the bread the expected freshness and flavor.

shortening agent is likewise found to add to the keeping qualities of the loaf, in the sense that even after the leaf has lost its original freshness, it lacks the rancidity frequently met with in ordinary bread which has been kept, under the same conditions, for the same period of time.

in the practice of the invention, we may use as the shortening agent, a hard fat of either vegetable or animal origin,as, for instance, hydrogenated edible vegetable oil (say hydrogenated cotton-seed oil), hydrogenated edible animal oil, or, oleo-stearin. In most instances, we prefer to use hydrogenated cotton-seed oil, or other hydrogenated vegetable oil of an edible character, for the reason that such hydrogenated oils are relatively cheap, and can be hydrogenated or hardened up to a high melting point readily and conveniently. Thus, cotton-seed oil having a melting point of 57 C.

, particles of flour, coming in contact with, u

and then mixing the flour therewith. The heating and mixing operation may conveniently be effected in a rotary drum, or the like, having a heating jacket, and provided'interiorly with suitable mixing arms 01' stirrers. Thetemperature should be maintained, during the mixing operation, above the melting point of the fat, so that the flour shall not chill the mass, or the flour may be preheated, for the same purpose. It is found that, under these conditions, a quantity of flour equal in weight to from 5 to 10 times the weight of the melted fat will absorb the fat, and that the flour will nevertheless retain its pulveruleut condition, at the termination of the.mixing operation, and after cooling, and will otherwise be fully adapted for use as a part of the flour constituent of the dough batch. It is a characteristic merit of this way of incorporating the hard fat into the dough batch that it involves heating only a relatively small quantity of the flour. Thus it one pound of hard fat is to be added to a dough batch containing say 880 pounds of flour, it will suflice to absorb the fat in five to ten pounds of flour, in the manner described, and it is found that in the subsequent mixing and kneading of the dough batch, the shortening thus added to the relatively small amount of flour will be homogeneously distributed throughout the entire mass. This is a feature of advantage, for the reason that it involves the avoidance otheating the entire mass of flourup to the temperature of the small portion which has absorbed the fat, and eliminates the expense, inconvenience, and whatever injurious effect might be incident to such heating.

The hard fat may also be incorporated with the flour in the manner following: The melted fat. heated up to a temperature of 200. C. and upward may be supplied from a suitable melting and ating receptacle or the like to a discharge pipe from which it may be ejected, at a correspondingly high temperature, in the form ofa fine spray or cloud, by a jet of air of appropriate temperature, volume and pressure, into an inclosed chamber. Into this chamber, the flour may be sifted in a disseminated falling body; whereupon the colder the highly heated articles of fat sprayed into the chamber take up the fat. The flour thus impregnated with the melted fat remains in a pulverulent condition, after cooling, and is available for use as a part ofthc flour ingredient of the dough batch. In this case it is'found that by repeating the absorbing operation a number of times, upon the same body of flour a quantity of flour from five to ten times the weight of the fat is sufficient to absorb the fataud yet remain in a pulverulent' condition, suitable for admixture in making up the dough batch, and that, during the mixing and kneading operations, it is taken up homogeneously by the entire batch.

It is found that, with equally good results as to color, texture and expansion,'a quantity of the melted fat incorporated with the flour in either of the ways de scribed may be employed of approximately one-twentieth the weight of the cotton-seed oil used ordinarily in making up the dough batch. Thus, in those instances where from 2 to 3 per cent. of cotton-seed oil (calcubaked loaf having the desired amount of moisture to give it the freshness and flavor desired.

It will be understood that, instead of using flour as the absorbent carrier for the melted hard fat, we may employ any other suitable pulverulent carrier, appropriate as an ingredient of the dough batch, as, for instance, some other starchy material than theflour constituting the main bulk of the batch.

In some instances, instead of incorporating the hardened fat in the dough batch, by melting the fat, we may, with less advantage, mix it with an unsaturated or anhydrogenized vegetable oil, such as cottonseed oil, so as to enableit to be incorporated in the dough batch at a lower temperature. Thus, by using as the shortening agent, 25% by weight of hardened cotton-seed oil of 5 O of unhydrogenized cotton-seed oil, a mixture is obtained which will produce the shortening eti'ect desired although employed in quantity approximatingonly one-fourth,

by weight, of the amount of liquid cotton- C. melting point in admixture with 1:-

We have also found that, provided that 4 the hard fat is reduced to a sufiicie'ntly fine I state of subdivision, it is available for use in the practice of the invention. Thus, the hard fat (say h 'drogeni7kd edible cottonseed oil having a melting pointugf 57 C.) may be sprayed at a temperature above its melting point into a suitable coolingchamber, the conditions being so calibrated that the sprayed melted fat will be deposited in the chamber in the form of a fine powder. Those particles of this powder which are sufficiently small to pass through a sieve of 100 to 200 mesh to the square inch are of a subdivision sufiiciently fine to be homoi geneously absorbed by the dough batch in the course of the mixing and kneading thereof. In general, it will not be desirable to attempt to incorporate in the dough batch particles of melted fat obtained in this way, of a size materially larger than will pass through a sieve of the mesh referred to and, in fact, it is usually the preferred practice to absorb the melted fat by means of a pulverulent carrier as hereinbefore described. A hard fat of a similar fine state of subdivision to that indicated above may also be produced by subjecting a hard fat of high melting point to mechanical grinding, as in a ball mill, at a temperature below that of coalescence of the fat particles, inasmuch as, at suitably low temperatures, the hard fat becomes capable of disintegration to the desired extent without coalescing or sticking together of the finely subdivided particles. The incorporation of the finely divided fat produced in' this manner is effected in the manner indicated above. The hard fat can also be reduced to a sufiiciently fine state of subdivision by subjecting to a grinding operation, for example, between crushing rollers such as are used for reducing grain to flour, by carrying on the crushingin the presence of a suitable excess of flour which prevents the particles from coalescing while they are being reduced to the desired state of subdivision. Thev composition produced in this manner is available for use in the manufacture of the novel leavened bread of the present invention, in the manner already described.

The leavened bread produced according to the present invention is characterized by improved keeping qualities, moisture content and consistency, its content of hard fat as the shorten ng agent. \Vhere the hard fat has a melting point of 57 (3., or a few degrees thereabove or therebelow, the leavened bread will contain the hard fat of the same or substantially the same melting point, and this fat can be extracted from the bread by suitable extraction methods. The use of a hard fat ofhigh melting point, for example, about 57 C. whether this fat be of an animal or vegetable nature, presents the advantages which have already been pointed out, both in the method of production and in the baked loaf. It will be understood, however,

that variations of a few degrees above or below that specified, namely (1, do not materially alter the bread making operation and improved and by" or the properties and characteristics of the baked loaf; and, accordingly, in referring to a hard fat of a melting point of about 57 (3., we use this term in an illustrative and not in a limiting sense. So, also, where the shortening agent is a mixture of the hard fat of high melting point with a liquid fat, and where the advantages incident to the use of the hard fat are somewhat modified by the presence of the liquid fat, the baked loaf will be characterized by advantages partaking of the nature of those due to the use of the hard fat alone, but the shorten- 1ng agent of the baked loaf will be a fat of lower melting point corresponding to the melting point of the mixture used. In general, fats of a melting point as low as about 55 C. can be used in the practice of the invention and the advantages incident to the use of the hard fats secured, although to a somewhat lesser degree than when the shortenlng agent consists of the higher melting fat without appreciable admixture of liquid fat therewith. Even when fats of a melting point as low as about 35 C. are employed, the amount of the shortening agent in proportion to the flour of the bread is but a fraction of the amount of liquid shortening agent required for producing the same shortening effect and need not exceed five pounds of fat to 880 pounds of flour and bread. Fats of higher melting point requlre a correspondingly less proportion by weight of fat to flour to produce the same shortening effect, and, when the melting the bread. In fact, the higher the melting point of the fat, the less quantity thereof, in proportion to the flour employed, will be required to obtain a baked loaf of satisfactory shortness, moisture-content and keeping qualities.

, We claim 1. As a new article of manufacture, leavened bread wherein the shortening agent present comprises fat having a melting point not less than 35C., the amount of said shortening agent in proportion to the flour of the bread being but a fraction of the amount of liquid shortening agent requiredfor producing the same shortening effect; substantially as described.

2. As a new article of manufacture, leavened bread wherein the shortening agent v ened bread wherein the shortening agent 10 being in proportion not exceeding two pounds of fat to 880 pounds of flour of the bread; substantially as described.

In testimony whereof we aflix our signatures.

HENRY A. KOHMAN. TRUMAN M. GODFREY. LAUREN H. ASHE. Witnesses RICHARD DARRELL, HELEN R. BROWNE. 

